- Ilana Freedman
For Israel to embarrass Vice President Joe Biden during his recent visit to Jerusalem was diplomatically stupid. The issue was the announcement that the Jerusalem municipality had approved construction of 1,600 new apartments (not 1,600 settlements as some have reported) in an existing neighborhood in an already densely populated part of Jewish Jerusalem (not on land occupied by Arab residents, as was widely reported).
The announcement was badly timed. But it should hardly have been the trigger for such a massive verbal and diplomatic assault on Israel's government. For the US to seize on this event and escalate the situation to its current hysteria is a measure of how far off the path of sound foreign policy we have strayed.
When the administration simultaneously gives lip service to "our special relationship with Israel", while blasting its leadership and micromanaging such issues as neighborhood growth, the weakness of our leadership becomes a matter of concern.
Being the 'leader' of the free world comes with responsibility. The role of our government should be to mediate and calm the frazzled nerves of our allies, not inflame them. Israel has been in a state of war for nearly 63 years, living with neighbors who attack its citizens at will in the heart of its population centers and across its borders.
Israel's powerful and sometimes savage response to ceaseless terrorism may not fit into our politically correct view of the world. But I would venture to say that we would do no less, were the terrorists on our border, flinging rockets at our cities, and attacking American families in their homes.
The list of diplomatic faux pas that the current administration has made during its first year has been embarrassing, from the gift of an I-pod to the Queen of England, to the President's famous bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, to the return of a bust of Winston Churchill - given to the White House by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, and on and on. But the previous mistakes in diplomatic protocol were only embarrassing.
However, when our Secretary of State calls on the duly elected Prime Minister of a sovereign and berates him for 45 minutes, she crosses a host of diplomatic red lines. Hillary Clinton's scolding of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was inappropriate and inflamed an already volatile situation.
When CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus recently suggested that the West Bank and Gaza should be included in his area of command in order to change the negative impressions of the US currently held by Arabs in the region, he discarded his military objectivity and became a part of the political problem.
Although this idea was not a new one, as confirmed by former CENTCOM Commander Admiral William "Fox" Fallon, who said that talk about adding parts of Israel and the West Bank to his command was commonplace under his command, military intervention to impose "peace" within another sovereign state, when true partners to the peace process do not exist, is presumptuous and arrogant. It is also wrong.
In the case of the Queen's I-pod, no lasting damage was done. But in this case, broken protocols may very well lead to war. The stakes are far too high for diplomatic incompetence to trump existential threat. Israel is a tiny country, the size of New Hampshire, surrounded by terrorist supporting states that would be happy to see her disappear.
The sad truth is that Israel stands alone. Her closest ally, the United States, is now taking significant steps to abandon their historic relationship. As we seek to appease those who openly seek our destruction, we are turning our backs on our true allies in the struggle against global terrorism. Instead, we are cozying up to America's own fiercest enemies, including organizations like Hamas and nations like Iran and Venezuela.
The Obama administration's new policy of hammering Israel is not acceptable. It is time for the American policy-makers to recognize the difference between our enemies and our friends. We need to assert our powerful (although swiftly diminishing) power in ways that are both constructive and honorable. Our current policy is leading us rapidly down the path to a global war in which our own existence as a free nation will be ultimately tested.
In the interest of maintaining an ongoing, if tenuous, stability in the region, Prime Minister Netanyahu should remember the principle on which he has expounded for many years: that only strong and courageous leadership can overcome the onslaught of tyrants and terrorism. He must now follow his own advice and stand firmly against the interference of American power-brokers masquerading as statesmen, so that he can protect his country from the next war.
That is the war that will be started by the impact of American interventions and power-broking in a region that cannot afford any more wars.
Ilana Freedman is a Senior Intelligence Analyst and CEO of Gerard Group International, Inc. Comments can be sent to comments@gerardgroup.com. Gerard Group provides full support in intelligence analysis for business and homeland security. For more information, please call: 800-950-4213 or visit our website at gerardgroup.com
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